The energy transition in Germany, although supported nationally by widespread recognition of climate change, faces significant local opposition. This gap raises questions about the factors influencing individual attitudes towards renewable energy infrastructures. Drawing on the literature about the acceptance of renewable energy, we examine the impact of attitudes towards climate policy, populism and place attachment on the acceptance of renewable energy infrastructure. Additionally, we examine differences in acceptance between East and West Germany. Using instrumental variables (IV) regression and Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition with a representative survey sample of 8,643 individuals, our study shows that positive attitudes towards climate policy significantly increase the acceptance of renewable energy infrastructures in Germany. Conversely, populist attitudes are associated with lower levels of acceptance. While place attachment has no significant effect, acceptance is notably lower in East than in West Germany. These results provide insights into the complex reasons behind the acceptance or rejection of renewable energy projects and highlight the need for climate policies that are sensitive to regional and political nuances. Tailored communication strategies that take these differences into account are essential to foster acceptance and bridge the gap between general acceptance and local rejection. In conclusion, the successful advancement of the energy transition in Germany requires acknowledging and addressing the diverse socio-cultural contexts across the country.

This paper analyses the importance of social infrastructure, understood as physical locations and institutions that influence the way people engage with one another, for explaining local belonging beyond the metropolis. Previous studies emphasise the importance of factors such as length of residence, trust, social cohesion, or community organisation for the sense of belonging to one’s neighbourhood, but more or less ignore the aspect of social infrastructure. Furthermore, these studies predominantly focus on the major metropolises in the Global North and South, consistently overlooking smaller places. In this paper, a regional, individual-level dataset is used to analyse the systematic relationship between feelings of local belonging and the existing social infrastructure in cities, towns, and villages in Germany, covering various size categories below the metropolis. The statistical analyses show that local belonging primarily means belonging to the people in the neighbourhood. Trust in neighbours and conversations with neighbours are by far the strongest explanatory factors for a sense of belonging, while social infrastructure, although relevant at the individual level, is much less important. In contrast to the emphasis placed on social infrastructure in qualitative empirical studies, it plays only a minor role in residents’ sense of belonging in German cities and villages.

The implementation of new policy measures to mitigate climate often leads to public backlash, undermining their political feasibility, especially in democracies. To understand public opinion and the various positions within the polarized climate policy debate, our study draws on a representative survey conducted in Germany in 2022. We found strong evidence for four distinct groups, which we label as being 'committed' to, 'worried' about or 'indifferent' to climate policy initiatives, or being outright 'dismissive' of such policies. Distrust of democratic institutions, processes, politicians and norms as well as a tendency towards a conspiracy mentality play a crucial role in explaining the cleavage between these groups, particularly between the committed and the dismissive. The committed are a rather West German, female, democracy appreciating, urban and educated social group without a conspiracy mentality. In contrast, the dismissive group exhibits a conspiracy mentality and is sceptical of the political elite. This reflects a West German green and an East German right-wing populist milieu. The worried, who are concerned about losing their jobs, increasing social conflict and falling living standards as a result of climate policy, and the largest group of the indifferent are less well explained by the socio-demographic, attitudinal covariates and require further research. The results of the segmentation can be used to design effective climate communication and develop target group-orientated approaches.

How and why climate change opinions vary within countries at a small geographic scale is rarely investigated. Previous research has focused on public opinions at the individual or national level, leaving local differences within countries and their underlying factors largely unexplored. The lack of research at subnational levels is problematic, as adaptation and mitigation policies depend on collective support and action involving multiple stakeholders at the local scale. It is thus crucial to identify geographic differences in climate change opinions and to unravel their determinants at a fine-grained local scale. We examine public CCOs across 4,667 municipalities in Germany by relying on a representative survey of households. Here we show substantial and systematic differences in public climate change opinions across locations that manifest between urban vs. rural and prospering vs. declining areas. Besides these geographic features, more complex historical and cultural differences between places play an important role.

This paper analyses the impact of anti-immigrant attitudes on social cohesion in Singapore. The OLS regression models show that anti-immigrant attitudes have a negative influence on social cohesion in all analyses, but this influence is weak and falls behind the ambiguous influence of patriotism. In some of the data, there is a significant difference in social cohesion between the centre and the peripheral districts of Singapore, which can only be attributed to a small extent to composition effects. The results of the analyses thus show that the partially state-led measures for social cohesion in a post-colonial society are indeed effective. However, the multicultural Singaporean society obviously also reacts to cohesion policy measures in a group-specific manner. It is noticeable that social cohesion and an open culture for newcomers cannot be thought of separately. These policies should therefore focus even more strongly than before on social cohesion as societal cohesion.

Der vorliegende Beitrag nimmt Zusammenhalt aus der Perspektive von Kunst und Kultur in den Blick. Vorgestellt wird das explorative Transferprojekt »Circling Realities«, welches im Rahmen einer partizipativen Konzertveranstaltungsreihe begleitend erforscht wurde. Im Zentrum steht die narrative Auseinandersetzung mit dem Konzept gesellschaftlicher Zusammenhalt im Austausch zwischen Wissenschaft, Kunst und Öffentlichkeit. Dazu skizzieren wir Konzerterfahrungen von jungen Besucher:innen anhand von Dialoggesprächen und einer Publikumsbefragung: Wie setzen sich Besucher:innen mit der künstlerischen Vermittlung von Zusammenhalt auseinander? Was für Deutungen über Zusammenhalt entstehen daraus? Der Beitrag gibt zunächst einen Einblick in das inhaltliche Konzept des Transferprojekts und stellt anschließend die Rolle narrativer Methoden für die Wissensvermittlung vor. Danach nehmen wir das Erleben von Besucher:innen in den Blick und analysieren ihre Reflexionen zum Konzert. Abschließend wird diskutiert, welche Rückschlüsse sich aus der explorativen Begleitforschung für die Untersuchung von gesellschaftlichem Zusammenhalt ziehen lassen.

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Regionalism, understood as affective attachment of people to place, is shifting into the focus of social scientific attention. An important aspect of this are the globally observable encounters of growing numbers of immigrants with regional identities. Empirical work concerning the impact of regionalism on anti-immigrant attitudes has been contradictory so far. Results range from a moderate to no influence. The paper, thus, analyses the intricate relationship between hostility towards immigrants and regionalism in detail. Merging country-level data on the extent of regional autonomy in a nation-state with individual and regional data on regionalism enables us to gauge the relevance of regionalism for anti-immigrant attitudes in a comparative perspective. The paper presents a multilevel regression analysis that shows a mitigating relationship of the presence of extensive regional autonomy in a nation-state on anti-immigrant attitudes at the country level. Regionalism, unlike nationalism, does not correlate with anti-immigrant attitudes at the regional or individual level, while nationalism is clearly significant at both levels. These results reflect general global prejudice trends and the call for further work on the effect mechanisms of institutionally granted regional autonomy on openness to immigrants.

This paper offers a multidisciplinary overview on the concept and reality of affective and spatial atmospheres. Initially, the paper provides a synopsis on the disciplinary origins of the concept in philosophy, cultural geography and architecture, and then outlines how tourism research has more recently started adopting the atmosphere perspective. Research on spatial atmospheres has primarily been concerned with collective affective phenomena in space, but has also been characterised by inconclusive debates regarding where transpersonal affect ultimately emanates from (quasi-objective environmental origins vs relational body/'Leib'-centred origins). While these are important debates which have implications, the practical and empirical operationalisation of the atmosphere concept is just as relevant. This holds particularly for tourism, where providers try to engineer desired moods and ambiances. The paper concludes by identifying current gaps in the literature and outlines future directions for research into atmospheres, in the tourism field and beyond.

This paper develops the new concept of the geography of placemories as a critical approach for deciphering spatialised memories in cultural geography. In referring to Alfred North Whitehead’s philosophy of organism and cultural materialism in line with Raymond Williams, the paper reflects on processual conceptions of feeling, society, memory and place. First, reviewing existing research on memory and place elucidates that cultural geography takes spatialised memories as fixed objects. Its analysis leads to statements about society. Second, to avoid this fallacy, the paper shifts the analytical basis for the cultural geographical conception of memorial sites from place to feelings and experiences by developing a new view on spatialised memory. The resulting processual problematisation of the ontology of memories, as well as its relevance for the present and spatialisations, is called the placemoric approach. The analysis of contested remembering processes with regard to the prerogative of interpretation of half-timbered houses in descriptions of Nuremberg’s old town in North Bavaria, Germany demonstrates the capabilities of the placemoric approach. In doing so, the paper shows how spatialised memories are the socially constructed result of permanently changing feelings. Keywords Germany , memory , philosophy of organism , structures of feeling , Whitehead

This paper develops the new concept of the geography of placemories as a critical approach for deciphering spatialised memories in cultural geography. In referring to Alfred North Whitehead’s philosophy of organism and cultural materialism in line with Raymond Williams, the paper reflects on processual conceptions of feeling, society, memory and place. First, reviewing existing research on memory and place elucidates that cultural geography takes spatialised memories as fixed objects. Its analysis leads to statements about society. Second, to avoid this fallacy, the paper shifts the analytical basis for the cultural geographical conception of memorial sites from place to feelings and experiences by developing a new view on spatialised memory. The resulting processual problematisation of the ontology of memories, as well as its relevance for the present and spatialisations, is called the placemoric approach. The analysis of contested remembering processes with regard to the prerogative of interpretation of half-timbered houses in descriptions of Nuremberg’s old town in North Bavaria, Germany demonstrates the capabilities of the placemoric approach. In doing so, the paper shows how spatialised memories are the socially constructed result of permanently changing feelings.

Within the context of climate change in sub-Saharan Africa, trust in institutions is an important prerequisite to implement climate change adaptation and mitigation policies. There is a lack of systematic investigation of the relationship between climate change awareness, conflicts, and trust in institutions. We address this pressing research gap based on a regression analysis with trust in institutions as dependent variables, and climate change awareness and violence as independent variables drawing on Afrobarometer individual data and aggregated data on armed conflicts. Our main findings indicate that trust in institutions in sub-Saharan Africa is influenced by both the individual climate change awareness and the violence context. First, we find a negative relationship between those who are aware of climate change and trust in institutions. Second, we observe a socio-economic divide: young, urban and educated parts of the population as well as those who feel their ethnic group is treated unfairly do not trust institutions. Third, we see a regional divide: those far from political centres are not aware of climate change, and those close to the political centres do not trust institutions.

Narratives and stories are important communication tools and as such essential subjects of social geography. This paper analyses the retelling of Greta Thunberg’s sailing trip across the Atlantic to the Climate Action Summit in New York in 2019 in leading German newspapers and magazines and how her intentions are transformed through this reporting into different narratives. The research mainly focuses on examining the influence of space and place, as geographical research has revealed that spatial determinants are crucial in risk communication and knowledge generation on climate change but have yet to be studied considering stories. The paper, therefore, extends the story-based approach from communication sciences by geographical research on the role of space and place in action-based stories. Therefore, the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) is used to decode the spatial environment in narratives as an active element that shapes the narrative, and the way characters can (inter)act within these settings. The paper further develops the NPF framework through a geographical lens by focusing particularly on the selection options of spaces for social interactions and affective bonds. Thus, it becomes evident how spatial contexts and environments shape the interactions between individuals and crucially influence the types of narratives that emerge.

Patriotism-as an ambivalent attitude towards the nation-has less exclusionary characteristics than nationalism and regional identification, because it does not require comparisons and hierarchies. What is less clear, however, is how to explain the positive evaluation of patriotism in the wider population. The article analyses the positive relationship of patriotism with nationalism and regional identification in 29 national and 421 regional contexts. The paper clearly shows that different factors explain the positive evaluation of patriotism and the mind-set of patriotism itself. While a nationalist attitude and regional identification at the individual level are strongly associated with a positive evaluation of patriotism and patriotism itself, institutionalised forms of regional autonomy are shown to be insignificant for the evaluation of patriotism and ambivalent for patriotism itself at the context level. The article concludes by discussing these results in the context of a Janus-faced nature of regional identification that can contribute to an inclusive society as much as to a nationalist-chauvinist attitude and which has so far been overlooked in regional science.

Climate change can only be tackled with public support for sustainable policies. Thus, public attitudes towards climate change matter. More than 3 decades of climate change opinion (CCO) research-conducted by geographers, environmental psychologists, behavioural scientists, sociologists etc.-have provided us with a wealth of information about which predictors shape public CCOs. This review synthesises these findings and highlights the different geographies (the self, the nation, the region, the digital) that emerge within this research. Given the increased importance of social media, virtual geographies of climate change scepticism are increasingly being identified. Our paper argues that new research agendas must be developed to address the meshwork of virtual space and small scale geographies (regions, towns, districts) in which CCOs are formed.